Simplifying the Education Abroad Process - Via TRM

What would it look like to radically simplify the education abroad process for students and administrators?

The writer Antoine de Saint Exupéry famously said, “You know you’ve achieved perfection in design, not when you have nothing to more add, but when you have nothing more to take away.”

For the study abroad office, getting to simple…

Might mean first evaluating current operations in their complexity and identifying areas for improved efficiencies. A report by Xerox found that 46% of small businesses who rely on paper processes waste a significant amount of time each day managing workflows.

Do an internal audit of your current processes:

• Assess: Think about the most productive part of your day and the least productive part of your day. Ask your team.
• Gather: Map the study journey to study abroad to get the full picture of your current process.
• Analyze: Review your process and see where there is room for improvement.
• Prioritize: Looking over your analysis, decide on your priorities for improvement. Which processes are the most time-consuming? Which are the most frustrating for staff?
• Automate and Streamline: Once you know which processes are a priority, decide what steps you can take to improve them. Are there unnecessary steps you can cut out? Are there additional tools you need to support?

Take it a step further by mapping out the student journey to study abroad. Create a simple chart to understand each stage of the student journey, and the role of your office in supporting that stage (and moving students forward through the process!).

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What does it look like on your campus to simplify the education abroad process?